Sports of The Times; Barefoot Down the Bobsled Run

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Published: January 18, 1992

What seemed at first to be a harmless controversy has escalated into an international embarrassment for the troubled United States Bobsled Federation and the United States Olympic Committee.

At one level, the issue, which centers on procedure, involves questionable maneuverings in the federation's process for selecting an Olympic team and a low tolerance for outsiders. More important, the case underscores the U.S.O.C.'s failure to mediate a deteriorating marriage between professional and amateur athletics in this country.

The dispute revolves around Willie Gault, Greg Harrell and Edwin Moses. Gault is a pro football player and Harrell is a former pro football player; Moses is a four-time Olympian, the world-record holder in the 400-meter hurdles and a member of the U.S.O.C. board of directors.

In a grievance filed last summer, these athletes charged that they were denied a fair opportunity to make the 1992 Olympic bobsled team.

Last Saturday, an arbitrator found that rules and regulations governing the bobsled trials had been improperly adopted, and ordered a pushoff. That effectively gave Moses, Gault and Harrell a final opportunity to make the team this weekend. Shortly after the announcement, Moses said he would pass up a second chance to make the team and concentrate instead on training for the hurdles in the 1992 Summer Games.

Although the arbitration was supposed to have been binding, three people already chosen for the bobsled team obtained an injunction blocking the pushoff. But yesterday, that decision was overturned by the Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court.

Regardless of the flip-flopping, the bobsled case raises larger questions about the loosely structured guidelines that allow the U.S.O.C.'s 40 governing bodies to do virtually anything they please in the process of selecting teams in individual sports.

Take USA Basketball's stunning decision to drop Olympic tryouts. The federation all but eliminated college players from the selection process and arbitrarily chose a star-studded team of professionals. Just like that, hundreds of amateur athletes were displaced and denied an opportunity to compete for an Olympic berth. And the U.S.O.C., which is supposed to protect amateur rights, let it happen.

Same with tennis and hockey.

The bobsled people seem more concerned with preserving a comfort level that might be ruffled by the presence of world-class athletes. That's troublesome, too. Specialized sports like bobsledding have generally been off limits to potential participants who lack exposure to and financial support for extensive world-class training.

Gault, Harrell and Moses happen to have the money. What they have had to contend with, however, have been subtle end runs by a core of athletes and administrators who, Gault and Moses have felt, resented the presence in the sport of outsiders and professional athletes.

At least two of the rules that were changed two months before the bobsled trials were adopted without unanimous consent of the athletes, contrary to U.S.O.C.. guidelines. The changes reduced the effectiveness of sprinters by shortening the distance they could run before jumping onto the sled and by adding weight to the sled. Gault, Harrell and Moses lost by one one-hundredth of a second in the trials last July.

"They say they want the best athletes," Gault said. "If we can come right in and perform as well as the guys who have been doing it all year, that says something. This is like a fraternity. They see their way of life being threatened and it makes them feel uneasy."

The question the U.S.O.C. must help answer is whether the nation wants a strong developmental system that allows pure amateurs -- and amateurs only -- to compete on Olympic teams, or whether it wants to forge a palatable marriage between the professional and amateur athletic worlds?

Thousands of potential skaters, rowers, gymnasts, cyclists and such throughout the United States are frozen out of the Olympic movement because they lack exposure to a variety of sports, or lack the necessary money for training, or cannot crack the traditional "closed-shop" organizations that resist sources of fresh talent.

So, we frequently end up sending the best athletes who can afford to participate, rather than the best athletes.

Sooner or later, the U.S.O.C. has to make a decision: Either put million-dollar shoes on athletes and call them pros, or keep them barefoot and call it principle.

Forward or backward, there have to be some changes. The current marriage simply isn't working.